


Tearing Me Apart

by notants



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alec Lightwood Deserves Nice Things, Bad Parent Valentine Morgenstern, Jace Wayland Deserves Nice Things, M/M, Past Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-04 18:59:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14026665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notants/pseuds/notants
Summary: "Something you want?" Jace drawled, eyes dragging up from the seraph blade on Alec's hip to watch him. Whatever wariness he had been projecting was buried, saved for whenever these two decided to stop playing around and start asking their real questions. "Think I might've bled on your sweater, but— to be fair, I wasn't planning on getting hurt."Jace was raised by Valentine, but he's tired.  Alec is the Head of the New York Institute.





	Tearing Me Apart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Takara_Phoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Takara_Phoenix/gifts), [Kimmy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kimmy/gifts).



> SHADOWHUNTERS  
> Jace/Alec, possible Magnus/Jace/Alec later because I miss writing Magnus and Jace...

However this went down, there would be pain.  
That was an eventuality Jace had been preparing himself for since he'd made that first stumble in the fight last night, seraph blade wavering. Pain wasn't something he was unused to, either. If he wasn't self-aware enough to be able to protect himself, as had been drilled into him, then he probably deserved whatever he had coming to him. (Of course, Valentine wasn't one to help with that; he never kept Jace from sleeping in so many words, but he knew better than to ask for a break while they were still training).  
Jace could accept that. He might even be able to accept that he deserved whatever was in store for him for making a big enough mistake to get him captured. But setting both of those aside, he was steadfastly refusing to think too hard about his own part in being taken last night. He'd been tired, yes; anyone would be, after training with Valentine. Exhaustion didn't prevent him from taking down opponents, though, skilled Shadowhunters or not. He knew, in a way shameful just to think about, that his sword had faltered out of more than just an ache in his muscles. He'd _let_ himself go down hard after a whip curled around his arm, and after that... there had been the hilt of a sword knocked against the back of his head. He'd gone unconscious to uncertain voices in the darkness.  
Jace came to in a room with dimmer lights than he'd expected, something he was unabashedly grateful for— anything brighter, and the already splitting headache would've been a migraine. The holsters on his thighs had been removed, but that was hardly surprising— what _was_ was that he now sported new clothes, ones that didn't seem meant to infuriate him with unpleasant threads and a coarseness that would only drag against his injuries. His... newly bandaged injuries.  
Jace jolted off the couch, awareness back enough to register that he was alone. The sudden movement pulled at his injuries, and a hand went to press against his side with a wince, a quiet curse. He had placed himself with his back to the wall farthest from the door, giving him space to take a more thorough stock of himself.  
New clothes: sweatpants, a dark red sweater. His injuries, both from the fight last night and the training sessions the week before, were bandaged, and someone had drawn an iratze on him, leaving a residue of faint heat behind. He was sore, yes, and he was in a room with no weapons and a door that locked from the outside, but there was no way the Clave was this careless. No way that this was how they treated prisoners. He knew that for himself; his own patrols sent out came back with three men, heavily injured, reporting vicious attacks from the New York Institute. Hell, it was two-thirds of what Valentine's speeches were about— they'd been brainwashed, the Shadowhunters out there, tricked into thinking the Downworlder problem was somehow under control. Those were the speeches he gritted his teeth for, swallowed down whatever bile rose into his throat just to be able sit through them. Kill enough people, and it got hard to remember what differences there were between you in the first place.  
Brainwashed or not, there wasn't any reason to think this treatment would continue; especially if it was a trick, something to throw him off his guard. Jace had just managed to think things through, as a matter of fact, when there were arguing voices outside, a firm knock, and the door swung open. He— probably wisely— remained where he was, but then, so did the other, having paused when he realized Jace was awake.  
"Oh," Alec said, and it wasn't as though Jace didn't recognize him. Alec Lightwood was the subject of the other third of Valentine's pre-raid speeches, not that Jace had ever had much occasion to see him, or the severity he was said to possess. At once naive in mending relationships with the Downworld and cruel with those that didn't agree with him, Lightwood didn't have much of a fan in the man who had raised Jace. Those speeches painted a sharp contrast, now, between that man and the man in front of him. He, at least, had a seraph. But he had dark bags under his eyes, hair that was more ruffled than anything else, and a freshly shaven face that contrasted sharply with Jace's mental vision of him. He seemed... apologetic? There was a woman behind him, too, one from last night— a sister, his brain supplied helpfully from some late-night information session. Isabelle.  
"Something you want?" Jace drawled, eyes dragging up from the seraph blade on Alec's hip to watch him. Whatever wariness he had been projecting was buried, saved for whenever these two decided to stop playing around and start asking their real questions. "Think I might've bled on your sweater, but— to be fair, I wasn't planning on getting hurt."  
Alec stood steadily, still framed in the doorway, lips pressing together to keep down— was that a smile? Isabelle said something insistently in his ear, and the man nodded in resignation, but whatever they had been discussing was lost when the other's next move was to step fully inside and shut the door.  
Jace wasn't one for torture; conducting it, at least. It was a job that had him out of his head for weeks afterwards, unable to concentrate— and Valentine wanted him stronger, to be sure, but he wasn't about to compromise the effectiveness of his best soldier to attempt to get him to learn to enjoy breaking a man. Still, from all their training on what he would do if he were ever on the receiving end, he knew that this was not involved. Letting your prisoner out of bonds, hell, healing him in the first place was already straying from the rulebook. Valentine had done worse to him when he was ten, had made sure he was prepared for every eventuality by eight. Death, as he had been all too happy to demonstrate, was one of the better things that could come of being captured.  
Lightwood cleared his throat, and Jace raised an eyebrow at him. So far, the other seemed content to stay by the door; the most he'd done was drag a chair a few feet over to swing a long leg over it, and sit down. Jace, for his part, remained against the wall, torn between confusion and caution. In the end, he settled on hiding the former, and tossing the latter to the wind. Being on edge like this was worse than being hurt, and if it was up to him to make the first move, then that was what it was going to take.  
"Not planning on telling you a damn thing, so we're clear." Jace moved a hand to drag through his hair, the least clean thing about him— he could feel specks of blood, but it seemed like a good deal of it had been removed. Alec seemed unbothered by that, expression serious once more, but not sadistic. Not in any way that he'd seen, at least.  
"Didn't expect that you would. Still, I have to ask. My sister seemed to think you came in more easily than you should've." At the reminder, something sunk in Jace's heart; Alec asked his questions, and he stayed silent.  
The flinch he gave was unexpected even to him, when the other unhooked his leg from around the chair and stood up. His jaw clenched, though— hey, it would've had to happen eventually. Nobody kept up playing good cop for very long, and the Institute needed answers more than they needed to try and keep up some sort of humane reputation. But the other man didn't start forward, didn't even set a hand on his sword. Just watched, in a way that was steadily infuriating him, and the edge of something soft in his voice was more unbearable even than that.  
"What's he going to do to you, if we let you go?"

If we let you go _and you go back to him_ , was the unspoken addition; there was little doubt in Alec's mind that he would return to Valentine, if they let him. The question had Jace's hand curling into a ball, nails digging red crescents into the heel of his palm.  
Alec wasn't wrong. Valentine had an uncanny ability to inspire his men to fight to their last breath, to die rather than be captured, in a vulnerable place where they might betray him. That inspiration came from his preferred motivator; pain. If a Shadowhunter was foolish enough to go back, if they escaped torture at the hands of the Clave, well. Valentine was more than willing to give them a taste of it himself.  
Panic had edged back into the corners of his mind, made his chest ache with it, because... Because. Because the Lightwood, with his calm words, was right. Because Jace would go back to him (where else did he have to go?), because Valentine wouldn't hesitate to teach him a lesson in disobedience, because he was so fucking tired. Of hurting, of being hurt, of going days without remembering what being without pain felt like.  
"What, and staying here is better? Try again, buddy. Maybe you're just new, maybe you don't get it, but you're gonna get frustrated soon." Jace gave a quiet shrug, ignoring the stinging ache in his shoulders at the movement. "Better stick with what I know." At this point? All he wanted was to sleep, to not deal with this mess— death was looking like a better and better option. If his father had been so set on ensuring he was ready to die, he should have realized it would stretch into a longing that Jace used to his advantage when he realized he wouldn't be able to shake.  
There weren't any new bruises on him when Alec left, nothing new to be afraid of except for his own faltering resolve. That didn't make it any easier for Jace to get to sleep, though, even half an hour after the door had shut. A horrible mix of exhaustion, pain, panic, and his father's voice in his head had dizzied him; his hand ached for a seraph blade all night.


End file.
